Ambrosia: Love Poems by Mark D. Bennion

Mark Bennion writes a tribute to his wife, Kristine.  Along the trail of his words, it isn’t long until The Song of Solomon comes to mind.  “Come my beloved, let us go forth into the fields”—SS 7:11.  But Bennion’s words are from a contemporary world.  Finding her was “better / than a sideline pick-six / in the last two minutes of a title game.” Ambrosia is full of life and humor and travel to places with descriptive names— Great Falls, Cut Bank, Deer Lodge— and much fun and the importance of responsibility and the relief that such a life was found.  Just listen to these words from the title poem— “But today I saw it, / raw and untutored, / purling and unrushed, // like the river steady / in its waves and offerings—”  Yes, Bennion’s work cuts through the riverbanks with the steady life-stream of family and faith.

–Diane Glancy, Author of Island of the Innocent, a Consideration of the Book of Job, & Psalm to Whom(e)

“How can a poet write another love poem, much less a set of poems that chronicles love across decades? Mark Bennion’s answer is to give readers high-resolution moments from his journey with his wife—rafting, holding hands, reading to one another, massaging a charley horse in the night. In these poems we glimpse the complexity, confusion, and wonder of mutual love and commitment, each poem reminding us that love is stronger than death.”

–Nathaniel Lee Hansen, Editor of The Windhover